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After the UK, online age verification is landing in the EU
- Five EU countries are set to test an age verification app to protect children online
- Denmark, Greece, Spain, France, and Italy are the first to test this technical solution
- The UK has enforced mandatory age checks on Friday, July 25, 2025, sparking concerns for citizens’ digital rights
Five EU countries are set to test an age verification app to protect children online.
Denmark, Greece, Spain, France, and Italy are the first to test the technical solution unveiled by the European Commission on July 14, 2025.
The announcement came less than two weeks before the UK enforced mandatory age verification checks on July 25. These have so far sparked concerns about the privacy and security of British users, fueling a spike in usage amongst the best VPN apps.
The EU’s age verification blueprint
As the European Commission explains on its website, the age verification blueprint enables users to prove they are over 18 “without revealing any other personal information.”
“It is based on open-source technology and designed to be robust, user-friendly, privacy-preserving, and fully interoperable with future European Digital Identity Wallets,” the Commission explains.
The introduction of this technical solution is a key step in implementing children’s online safety rules under the Digital Services Act (DSA).
Lawmakers ensure that this solution seeks to set “a new benchmark for privacy protection” in age verification.
That’s because online services will only receive proof that the user is 18+, without any personal details attached.
Further work on the integration of zero-knowledge proofs is also ongoing, with the full implementation of mandatory checks in the EU expected to be enforced in 2026.
What’s happening in the UK?
Starting from Friday, July 25, millions of Britons will need to be ready to prove their age before accessing certain websites or content.
Under the Online Safety Act, sites displaying adult-only content must prevent minors from accessing their services via robust age checks.
Social media, dating apps, and gaming platforms are also expected to verify their users’ age before showing them so-called harmful content.
As the UK’s regulator body, Ofcom explains on its website, service providers can use several methods to confirm users’ age. These span from face scans to estimate people’s age to bank or credit card age checks, ID wallets, mobile network operator age checks, photo-ID matching, and even email-based age estimation.
The vagueness of what constitutes harmful content, as well as the privacy and security risks linked with some of these age verification methods, have attracted criticism among experts, politicians, and privacy-conscious citizens who fear a negative impact on people’s digital rights.
While the EU approach seems better on paper, it remains to be seen how the age verification scheme will ultimately be enforced.
Commenting on this point, the CEO of Swedish VPN provider, Mullvad, told TechRadar: “The EU [approach] is more planned, it took the EU 12 years. In the UK looks like [there is] no plan at all.”
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